Association of Canadian Archivists (ACA) Student Chapters

Hello Ladies and Gents!

2008-05-13T14:06:00.003-04:00

I'll be taking over as the ACA Coordinator for the 2008/09 academic year at our McGill Student Chapter. We already have the position of Treasurer filled by Jennie Ferris but we still need students to run for the positions of:
Secretary
Communications Officier (SIS II)
1st Year Representative
2nd Year Representative (SIS II)
Event Planners

Those interested in joining just drop me a line at elaine.radman@mail.mcgill.ca

Also, the 2008 ACA Conference in Fredericton, NB is coming up in a few weeks. I'll like to know who from the student chapter will be making their way to the Maritimes, so we can get some representation on the national stage.

Elaine Radman =)
2008/09 Coordinator ACA McGill Student Chapter

Steven Loft @ National Gallery

2007-10-11T20:30:00.000-04:00

Winnipeg man named curator-in-residence at National Gallery

Last Updated: Thursday, October 11, 2007 4:43 PM CT
CBC News

The director of a modest art gallery in Winnipeg has made a leap to the National Gallery in Ottawa.

As of December, Steven Loft will be the first aboriginal curator-in-residence at the National Gallery. Loft has been running the Urban Shaman Gallery, an artist-run centre that specializes in work by native artists, since 2002.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/manitoba/story/2007/10/11/steve-loft.html

Greetings

2007-10-09T15:24:00.000-04:00

Hello All,

I'd like to introduce myself as the newly minted "communications officer" for the McGill ACA. As such, I look forward to working on publicity with our first- and second-year reps, and producing a newsletter recounting our speakers, activities and upcoming hi-jinks, with a tentative production date of 15 November. I'll post a link when the newsletter is ready to go!

Hoping that the semester is going well for everyone, and with best wishes for midterms and projects,

~Jennie Ferris

fis aca chapter blog

2007-08-20T10:49:00.000-04:00

Hi everyone,

The University of Toronto Faculty of Information Studies chapter now has a blog. You can find it at:

http://acastudentchapterfis.blogspot.com/

Hope you're all enjoying the last bit of summer!

meredith ferguson (chair, FIS chapter)

"Oh No!" Another Archivist lost.

2007-07-08T13:08:00.001-04:00

"Oh No!" Another Archivist lost.
Originally uploaded by Izanami_bs

This image is one of a set of humourous archival photos posted at flickr.com

Also check out:
Archivist Trading Card

SAA Conference 2007

2007-07-08T09:39:00.000-04:00

This looks like an interesting session. Is anyone out there going to the SAA conference this year?

I'd like to order...

Outreach

2007-07-02T11:04:00.000-04:00

I scanned and then emailed a jpeg of the ACA's "What is an archivist?" to a couple dozen acquaintances, having received a glossy version at the 2007 Conference in Kingston. The following is one of the responses I received from a 4th year B.A. student in sociology:

"thanks for that article about archivists. i fell asleep reading the first line. no, really it does make things a bit clearer. a bit."

I know it's tough, but it is some real feedback from someone who is a non-user of archives. If I understand our funding issues and our outreach goals, it is people like this that we are trying to reach...

ACA Conference in Kingston

2007-06-26T08:06:00.000-04:00

The Student groups were well represented at the 2007 Association of Canadian Archivists Conference in Kingston. It was a great chance to see what students at other schools are up to, both in research and in their Chapter activities. I was even inspired to begin writing up notes on events and event scheduling, even though we won't have an executive meeting until August. I'm finding that one of the potential challenges, at least right now, is trying to plan events when we don't know the numbers. We don't know how many students we'll have (either new first-year, or transferring second-year), and we only have a rough estimate on our funding right now. There have been murmmerings of further funding, but nothing confirmed yet. But, that's alright. As long as the schedule has some flexibility, and we roll with the punches, we'll be fine.

I was able to investigate potential speakers for the upcoming year at the conference, and speaking with the other McGill ACA execs, it looks quite promising.

I'd be interested to hear what other Student Chapters have done in the past that have proven successful, or haven't done as well (and if it didn't work out - perhaps why it didn't). I met students from UBC, Toronto and Manitoba. You can see some of our happy, shiny faces at the conference dinner & dance above. And, I'm eager to see them again, either in Fredericton in 2008, or at another conference before then.

2007 Conference South of the Border

2007-06-20T14:25:00.000-04:00

saa2007

Welcome to the UnOfficial Wiki of the 2007 Society of American Archivists (SAA) Annual Meeting

Archivarius

2007-06-18T21:27:00.000-04:00

"Dear Herr Anselmus," Archivarius Lindhorst said, "you have now copied a number of manuscripts for me quickly and accurately, to my great satisfaction. You have gained my confidence, but the hardest is still to be done, and that involves the transcription, or rather, the painting of certain works which are written in strange characters. I keep them in this room, and they can only be copied here. You will, therefore, in the future, work here, but I advise you to pay great heed because if you make a false penstroke or - heaven forbid!- if you should allow a blot to fall on the original, you will be plunged into misfortune."

Anselmus saw that small emerald leaves projected from the golden trunks of the palm leaves. Archivarius Lindhorst took hold of one of these leaves, and Anselmus perceived that the leaf was, in fact, a roll of parchment, which the Archivarius unfolded and spread out on the table before the student...Anselmus, suddenly terrified, glanced up, he saw the Archivarius standing before him in the same majestic form he had assumed during his first visit to the library.

Anselmus felt as if he must sink to his knees in deep reverence, but the Archivarius climbed up the trunk of a palm tree and vanished high among the emerald leaves.

Hoffmann, E.T.A. (1974) The Golden Pot, in Tales of E.T.A. Hoffmann, Abridged ed., 2nd Impress. Ed. & Trans. by Leonard J. Kent and Elizabeth C. Knight. Illus. Jacob Landau. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press , p. 60-62.

Image is Archivarius Lindhorst. Thanks to Jenn Murray for the reading tip!

ArchivesZ

2007-06-13T22:51:00.000-04:00

Jeanne Kramer-Smyth at the spellboundblog has come up with a very interesting information visualization tool that works off of the structured data produced by EAD markup.

The 5 minute video presentation is more that worth the time!

ArchivesZ

अर्चिविस्त, अनार्चिस्त, अर्चितेच्त, अच्तिविस्त

2007-06-10T13:17:00.001-04:00

Well! The Blogger Hindi button works very well! The Title of this post is "Archivist, Anarchist, Architect, Activist" because of the following quote:

THE ARCHIVAL IMAGE

My remarks have touched upon a number of archival images. You may have heard that sometimes the archivist is confused with the anarchist and the architect. Neither of these confusions is completely unflattering. Like the anarchist we should be distrustful of the government and governmental forms. Knowing the process of government, we accept them as man-made attempts to solve social problems rather than unchanging God-given forms for the ordering of humanity. Like the architect, we build the documentary resources to accomodate present and future needs. Form should follow function on the archivist's shelves as closely as on the architect's drawing board.

I can add only one image to those of the anarchist and the architect. That is one from my campus experience- the activist. The one primary distinguishing characteristic of the successful modern archivist should be his active participation in the world he is documenting. Involvement is not a diverion or a distraction but an opportunity to gain new appreciation of the actors and activities whose documentation is preserved and used in the archives.

-Brichford, Maynard J. (1967, Oct.). Informing the Government About Its Archives. The American Archivist, 30(4): 573.

Interesting. I have met students this year who are stilling dreaming up the Activist Archivist without knowing how often the profession has tried to ignite this image. As for the idea of Documentation, we all know how it is questioned, especially by the more Jenkensonian-minded among us...

Images of June

2007-06-02T13:36:00.000-04:00

Welcome to June everyone!

The ACA Conference will begin in a few short weeks. Here's a warm up:

"It should be remembered that academic historians consider all archivists to be pirates anyway, constantly on the lookout for booty, racing each other to it, and stealing from each other with abandon."

-Munroe, John A. (1963, April). A Brave Man - or a Foolish One. The American Archivist, 26(2): 155. Following Davis, G. R. C. (1960).
Some Home Thoughts for the English Archivist From Abroad? Archives, 4:176.
--------------------------------
Image= Anne Vallayer-Coster ( -1779) Still-life with Peaches and Grapes. National Gallery, Ottawa.

More blog fun

2007-05-24T21:44:00.000-04:00

Test test.
(If you're reading this, it means it's worked.)

I just thought I'd share a list of a few other archives-related blogs I read regularly, for anyone who's interested.

Archivematica: (frequently writes about computer systems for managing archives)
http://archivemati.ca/feed/

Digitization 101: (digital issues; frequently applicable to archives)

	http://hurstassociates.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

Spellbound Blog: (written by an archives student; again highly computer-based)

	http://www.spellboundblog.com/feed/

The Irreverent Archivist: (tends to be quite funny)

	http://irreverentarchivist.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

The Practical Archivist: (often deals with technical preservation issues)

	http://practicalarchivist.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

I've recently started using Google Reader to keep track of RSS feeds. I like it: simpler to use than the software I'd previously used for the purpose, and also happily I haven't managed to break it. How do you keep track of all the crazy stuff happening in the world of people writing about archives?

Image of Archivists

2007-05-22T14:10:00.000-04:00

As archivists, we have to deal with tons of stereotypes. Most often we are confused with librarians. If you find a website which discusses archivists and these stereotypes (whatever they may be), post it up! Let's start a discussion about it. This is my research area of interest. So please if you don't want me to someday use your post in a study, then don't post the info.

Here's a great one:
http://redwing.hutman.net/~mreed/warriorshtm/archivist.htm

I finally signed in!!!!!!

2007-05-10T18:52:00.000-04:00

There Trudi,
I finally signed in, now stop bothering me, Metadata is riveting, I really must get back to exciting Chapter 3: Library and Information-Related Metadata Schemas... I really can't wait for what Intner, Lazinger, and Weihs have hidden up their sleaves in this chapter.

I think I've found two places where I might be able to combine my two degrees if I do want to pursue a PhD, UBC and Dal (of course, Dal would be the better choice, my research interests seem to gel with a number of faculty members there, only one at UBC; of course Dal is twice as expensive... and of course their interdisciplinary PhD - Dal doesn't have a PhD program in library school - requires a CGPA of 3.70, this is interesting... I'm hoping to get it up to 3.60 this time next year... we'll see, I sent them an email about it).

Back to Metadata...
Greg

June 2007 ACA Conference

2007-04-30T12:36:00.000-04:00

What social events are you guys planning to attend? Are you going to the Dinner and Dance? the Cruise? or History & Wine Tour?

I want to send my form today - and I'm running behind as usual.

Trudi

ACA 2007 Conference

2007-04-15T21:46:00.000-04:00

I was hoping we could have a bit of a discussion about the conference coming up! I know many people were thinking of going. Thoughts about some of the sessions, which one will be the most popular (mine of course! ha!) etc.

New Blog

2007-04-14T22:37:00.000-04:00

Will this blog be open to the public? Can other ACA members (professionals, students of other schools) make comments?

I like the background pattern :)

Can we link to Richard Cox's blog?